


Supergirl's Super Cookie Surprise (Sanvers + Festive Holiday Baking)

by performativezippers



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Chanukah, Christmas, F/F, SANVERS ARE ENDGAME, SOME JOKES, Sanvers - Freeform, Slow Burn, Some angst, blobby snowwoman in a red bra - Freeform, cookie decorating, festive holiday baking, so MANY sweaters, some soft gays trying to figure it all out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 15:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13057230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/performativezippers/pseuds/performativezippers
Summary: Prompt from the wonderful lifeinabeautifullight: "Alex and Maggie do some festive baking."A Sanvers holiday story brought to you through seven years, thirteen sweaters, six toothpicks, and thousands of pounds of icing.





	Supergirl's Super Cookie Surprise (Sanvers + Festive Holiday Baking)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lifeinabeautifullight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeinabeautifullight/gifts).



It’s early October, so Alex has just turned 26 when she first meets Maggie out on that tarmac, the smell of charred carpet still wafting through the air. Maggie is indisputably beautiful, but so irritating that Alex barely notices. She sasses Alex, insults Alex’s agents, shows off her own knowledge, and then has the gall to saunter away like she’s won the fight.

Alex hates her, that day.

She gets better with age, though. She stays just as beautiful, of course, but her hard edges soften – probably from rubbing up against flames and pipes and street brawls and dresses and delicate smoky eye makeup and alien cocktails and the sharing of tiny vulnerabilities and rounds and rounds of beer and pool.

She becomes, sort of astonishingly, one of the most important people in Alex’s life.

She becomes the reason Alex comes out, the reason Alex realizes she’s always been a lesbian. And that’s infuriating of her, to destabilize Alex’s equilibrium like that, but it also all just feels kind of inevitable.

How could she _not_ like Maggie? How could Maggie _not_ shatter her entire sense of self? How could Maggie _not_ have capsized her?

Impossible.

So Alex kisses her. So Alex grabs her arm and spins her around and kisses her.

Because Maggie is beautiful and infuriating, and Alex is indisputably gone for her.

Alex’s feelings were inevitable, but, it turns out, Maggie’s weren’t. Maggie pulls back from the kiss. Maggie – so horribly gently – turns her down. Maggie wants to be friends.

And Alex is, indisputably, inevitably, impossibly, heartbroken.

 

* * *

 

It’s only been a few weeks since The Mistake, as Alex thinks of it. It’s Thanksgiving. Alex is going to come out to her mom, and to Winn and James, and, she guesses, to Mon-El because he’s there.

She’s trying to get drunk and Kara is trying to keep her sober, and it’s an hours long game of tug-of-war and hide-and-seek and distract-the-alien-with-snacks, and Alex is definitely winning.

But, just as she’s secreted the scotch out of Kara’s freezer and snuck into the corner with it – and honestly, scotch should never go in the freezer, not even for minute, it’s _disrespectful_ – her phone buzzes in her back pocket.

She assumes it’s work, and is getting ready to tell whatever poor rookie is manning the desk tonight that she’s tipsy but on her way in, when she sees that it’s not from work.

It’s a text from Maggie.

Maggie’s sent a lot of texts, and even called a few times since The Mistake, but Alex has ignored all of them. She’s quite clear on where she stands with Maggie; she doesn’t need any clarification. Alex is the pitiful friend in need of platonic gay mentoring, and Maggie is the girl who doesn’t want her back. And Alex can remember all of that perfectly well on her own, thank you very much. She doesn’t need the reminders on her phone, or at her crime scenes, or in her bar. She remembers just fucking fine.

But this text is a little different. It isn’t using work as a front, or asking her how she is, or halfheartedly inviting her out to play pool.

It’s simple.

 **_Maggie_ ** _: Happy Thanksgiving, Danvers. I’m thankful to have you in my life._

Alex reads it maybe ten times, blinking back tears.

It isn’t fucking _fair_.

Kara comes up behind her, a question in the way her hands flutter over Alex’s arms.

Alex tilts the phone to show her, because she doesn’t know how to handle this on her own. Kara reads it quickly and blows out a breath.

She wraps her arms around Alex, cradling her from behind.

She doesn’t say anything. Alex leans back into her sister’s warm, solid body.

 

* * *

 

Alex doesn’t find out until she’s already over at Kara’s – when she’s counting out pastry bags and jars of sprinkles – that Kara invited Maggie to her annual holiday cookie decorating party. Tonight.

It’s this sprawling, frantic, overwhelming tradition that’s so completely Kara that Alex can’t even pretend to dislike it. Every year, the Saturday before Christmas Kara invites over all of the people she cares about most, and she bakes dozens of sheets of festive cookies – Christmas shapes and Chanukah shapes and winter shapes and, now, a couple Kryptonian shapes that she can pass off as blobs. She makes buckets of icing and buys every store out of sprinkles, and she gets tons of booze and potstickers and it’s basically a six-hour adult cookie free for all.

It’s her favorite day of the year.

It makes her so happy, and it’s not exactly Alex’s style, but she loves Kara so much, and loves seeing her happy, so **_Kara’s Festive Cookie Spectacular_** , as she’s calling it this year, is one of her favorite days of the year too.

So Alex is understandably upset when Kara springs it on her – standing in the kitchen, just two hours before people will start to arrive – that Maggie is coming.

Maggie, who she’s only seen three times since The Mistake. Maggie, who is clearly trying to be her friend. Maggie, who she is just as gone for as she was that night up against the pool table.

Maggie, who took each and every one of the stable things in Alex’s life and threw them up on the air, leaving Alex to spend weeks sifting through them, her hands growing weary and her heart rubbed raw.

Maggie is coming to her sister’s apartment, where Alex is currently wearing a ridiculous red Christmas sweater with Santa on it (a gift from Kara, obviously), and where Alex will later be coerced to do festive karaoke, and where Maggie will see all of the ridiculous pictures of young Alex scattered around the apartment. Maggie will be forced to decorate festive cookies until her hands fall off and to drink eggnog until her stomach falls out, and to sing along to festive music until her throat closes.

And Maggie wants to be friends and Alex wants to be so much more, and tonight they’re going to lick icing off their fingers in the same apartment and that just seems cruel.

“Why, Kara?”

“She’s thankful for you, Alex. This is what you do with people who care about you like that.”

But Alex shakes her head. She wants Maggie to care about her so differently.

“I think it’s worth a shot, Alex. Just be her friend, just for one night. Decorate a cookie with her. See what it’s like. Okay? Just tonight. And then, if you never want to see her again, I promise I won’t interfere.”

And Maggie’s already invited and Alex can’t help but be curious if she’ll make really neat cookies or really artistic ones or really careless blobby ones, and so Alex just nods. “Just for tonight,” she agrees.

 

* * *

 

Maggie is one of the last to arrive, so things are already in full swing. Winn has already dropped three cookies, icing-side down, on the floor, and James has already whined loudly about the sugar and empty carbs enough times that Kara has banned him from talking for an entire hour.

Mon-El has already insulted Kara twice, and Alex has abandoned eggnog in favor of straight whiskey.

Maggie comes in, trailing behind Winn, who is already chattering at her a mile a minute, and her eyes are wide as saucers. The music is loud and people are practically yelling and there are at least twenty people and there are millions of cookies, and this was clearly not what she was expecting.

Alex can see that Maggie has a white-knuckle grip on the bottle of wine she very kindly brought, which will certainly not be opened tonight.

Alex takes pity on her, ignoring the tightness in her chest, and walks over, shooing Winn away.

“Hey, Sawyer.”

“Danvers, hi.” She blinks a couple of times, taking it all in. “This is…this is a lot. Your sister is _bananas_.”

And Alex can’t help but laugh.

This is all just so inevitable – how much she feels and how much it hurts – that it makes her stomach clench.

“You’re not wrong.”

Alex shows her around, introducing her to the other people – who Kara insists on calling The Cookie Monsters – and depositing her jacket on Kara’s bed. Alex grabs her an eggnog, and, at Kara’s aggressive eye contact, gets herself another cup too. She adds a generous dollop of whiskey to each, and meets Maggie back over at the potstickers.

“How many cookies did she bake?” Maggie’s eyes are still wide, and Alex just wants to reach out to touch her.

“Um, like a hundred? I’m not totally sure. You may be surprised to hear she’s not exactly a methodical baker.”

Maggie snorts at that. “Shocked.”

Alex just hums, and reminds herself not to kiss her again.

Maggie tries to hang back but Kara eventually rushes her, shoving a pastry bag in her hand and making space for her at the kitchen island, bumping Winn out of the way with her hip so Maggie can be within reach of the pyramid of sprinkles and the lazy susan of naked cookies.

Alex stands next to her – sending Winn scurrying with just a look – and watches as Maggie furrows her eyebrows a little, checking out all the different options. She ends up going for a tree shape, and she spends quite a while on a meticulous base layer of green icing. She’s got a pretty good technique, and when she starts adding tiny dollops of red and white for ornaments, she sticks her tongue out in concentration, and Alex wonders if it’s possible for her heart to actually explode.

Maggie arranges sprinkles with toothpicks to line them all up with military precision.

She never takes her eyes off her little tree. Once, when she blindly reaches for her eggnog, her hand knocks into Alex’s, and Alex can’t help but let out a surprised breath.

It isn’t until she finishes with her tree – carrying it over to the waiting plate that says _Detective Maggie_ on it with a blend of pride and shyness that makes Alex want to scoop her up – that she notices that Alex has barely done anything. Alex had grabbed one of the snowmen back when Maggie’d picked out her tree, and has done nothing since but draw on a lopsided hat.

“Naked plus tophat?” Maggie asks, one eyebrow up. “Quite the look, Frosty.”

“He doesn’t want to overheat,” Alex retorts, before the fact that Maggie said the word _naked_ really and truly hits her.

Maggie snorts and takes a drink of her eggnog. “C’mon, Danvers. I know you can do better than that.”

Alex looks down at her snowman, frowning. “Honestly, I’m not sure I can.”

“Ohh, is the teensy tiny snowman too hard for Agent Danvers?” Maggie’s grinning now, and Alex wants to melt into the floor.

“That’s Agent Dr. Danvers to you,” she manages to mumble.

But Maggie just beams at her. She gestures down to the naked snowman. “Stop stalling and put those surgeon hands to good use, Dr. Danvers.”

And Alex rolls her eyes but she’s already reaching for the white icing.

 

* * *

 

Alex does a roundly medium job. She doesn’t care at all, which is part of it, and she’s also completely distracted by Maggie’s hair and her face and her laugh and her entire self. Maggie makes another two perfect cookies – a menorah and a snowflake – while Alex grumbles through her one snowman.

Maggie is intently focused on her cookies, but she manages to keep up a lighthearted string of goads and jokes that keep Alex just on the right side of her irritation at her stupid snowman.

She’s trying to make a scarf, because Maggie won’t stop insisting that snowpeople have very chilly necks and depriving them of scarves is against the Geneva Convention. To which, or course, Alex responds that the DEO is exempt from the Geneva Convention, and Maggie’s eyebrows shoot up in obvious concern. She turns back to her menorah, muttering about _fucking_ _black ops vigilantes_ and _secret prisons are cheating_ and _like to see them taking witness statements at 4am_.

“Fuck,” Alex mutters for the third time, a few moments later. “Fucking fucker.”

And Alex hears James’ rumble of laughter and Winn’s giggle and Kara’s lighthearted reproach, but she only has ears for Maggie’s snicker.

“Problem, Danvers?”

“This fucking scarf,” Alex huffs, beyond embarrassment. “The fucking icing keeps slipping and now it’s in the wrong place.”

Maggie leans over to get a better look, and her head is right in front of Alex’s, and Alex can smell her hair, and, oh god, it’s torture for sure. Call the Geneva Convention.

“Kinda looks like a bra,” Maggie says, like it’s perfectly fair for her to say the word _bra_ in front of Alex. But then Maggie pulls back and looks up at Alex, right into her eyes, and gives her a wicked looking grin. “New fashion statement for the snowwoman community, I guess.”

And Alex can’t help but laugh. Maggie is absurd, and Maggie isn’t as funny as she thinks she is, and Maggie is a ridiculously meticulous cookie decorator, and Maggie is smiling at her, and Maggie is thankful for her, and Maggie wants to be her friend.

And Alex is gone for her.

So Alex spends the next ten minutes – as Maggie refills their drinks and helpfully provides suggestions – giving her snowwoman a proper red bra, filled in with red sprinkles that Maggie carefully nudges into place with her toothpicks.

And later there’s karaoke and there’s charades and they both switch back to straight whiskey. And it all smells like cookies and sugar and whiskey and Alex wonders if those smells will ever remind her of anything but Maggie again. And Maggie is leaning, just a little bit, into Alex on the couch when Kara announces that Maggie’s tree wins the Best Decorated: Classic award.

And Alex just wants to kiss her.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

It’s been hard on Kara, this past year since **_Kara’s Festive Cookie Spectacular_**. What with Slaver’s Moon, and Cadmus, and Jeremiah, and the Daxomite invasion, and sending her boyfriend into space, and all.

But she’s still determined to have the cookie decorating party this Christmas when Alex is 27. She’s calling it **_Nevertheless, She Decorated_** , and apparently the theme is perseverance. Alex isn’t entirely sure what having a theme means, because everything seems exactly the same as the last five years’ worth of cookie decorating parties, but it’s helping Kara, so Alex doesn’t mention it.

It’s been a tough year for Alex too, in a lot of ways. Watching Kara hurt has been agonizing. Her dad’s betrayal, now months old, still feels as raw and devastating as it had out in that forest.

But there have been high points, too. It’s now been more than a year since she came out – since she realized she was gay – and it’s good. She hasn’t dated much, and no one seriously, but she’s more comfortable and happy in her skin. She’s a lesbian, and she likes that about herself, now.

Kara tells her that she’s proud of her.

Things with Maggie have been good. They’ve become friends – real, actual, friends. The camaraderie that started at **_Kara’s Festive Cookie Spectacular_** never faded, and Maggie is, without a doubt, Alex’s best non-Kara friend.

Alex tells herself, convincingly, that she’s over Maggie.

But tonight Maggie walks into **_Nevertheless, She Decorated_** and she’s wearing a goofy green sweater that says _Happy Holigays_ on it, and Alex is wearing a red monstrosity with silver snowflakes all over it, and Maggie is holding a bottle of Alex’s favorite whiskey this time, and is grinning knowingly at the madness.

And Alex has been lying to herself for a year, because she’s not over Maggie. Not even close.

She’s just as gone for her as she’s ever been.

And there seems to be something zinging between them, tonight. It’s been there for a couple of months now – something borne from lingering glances and innocent touches and indulgent laughter – but tonight there’s more to it. Like it started a couple of months ago as a sketchy line drawing and has been getting more and more filled in as the days and weeks have gone on.

But tonight, it’s bursting into color, this painting between them.

Because tonight Maggie is leaning over to touch Alex on her hip to get her attention, and bracing herself on the small of Alex’s back as she reaches for the sprinkles, and tucking Alex’s hair behind her ear when she’s focusing on recreating her blobby snowwoman with the accidental red bra from last year.

Tonight Maggie won’t stop staring at Alex as she duets “All I Want For Christmas Is You” with Kara (a song dedicated, like every year, to potstickers), and as she makes a fool of herself in charades, and as they both chat with Vasquez about the new toys in the DEO armory.

And tonight Maggie giggles with near hysteria when Alex grabs her arm and pulls her into the bathroom to take shots of the whiskey away from Kara’s prying eyes, and she stands too close to Alex to just be a consequence of the small floor plan, and she looks, twice, at Alex’s lips.

And tonight, like most nights, Alex notices everything Maggie does. She notices every time Maggie absently scrunches her sleeves up, and Alex ends up reaching out to roll them up carefully so they stop nearly falling into her perfect cookies, and she feels Maggie’s bare skin under her fingertips. And tonight Maggie’s hair is annoying her but her hands are covered in icing so Alex pulls it up into a ponytail for her, and she can’t resist giving a little scratch to the base of Maggie’s skull, and she would swear under oath that Maggie trembles and shudders under her nails.

And tonight everything smells like cookies and sugar and whiskey and Alex never wants it to stop. Never wants Maggie to stop leaning into her body on the couch, never wants Maggie to finish decorating her driedel and her Santa with her tongue poking out of her lips in concentration, never wants Maggie to stop laughing at Alex’s best attempt at recreating her risqué snowwoman from last year.

Tonight, Maggie licks the red frosting off her index finger and her thumb, and Alex nearly passes out.

This thing between them – it’s zinging in color, tonight.

But it isn’t until the party has wound down – after most people have left, and Kara has set up _Elf_ for just the core group to watch in a sugar coma, that it explodes into Technicolor.

Everyone is plopping down on the couch or the floor on blankets, but Maggie stands up and intercepts Alex coming back from the bathroom. She grabs Alex’s arm and pulls her out into the hallway.

Alex would ask what’s happening but she can’t make her mouth work.

Maggie shuts Kara’s apartment door behind her. She turns to face Alex, and she’s indisputably beautiful, and Alex’s entire body is thudding against her skeleton.

Maggie looks both terrified and determined, and Alex can’t figure her out but she just wants to touch her.

“What is it?” Alex manages to ask.

“I meant what I said,” Maggie says vaguely, like that covers it.

“What you said when?”

“When you came out. I told you I was here for you, as a friend.”

Alex feels her heart sink down into her gut. She’s been pushing boundaries all night, she knows that, and Maggie’s calling her on it. _Fuck_. She’s an awful person, hitting on her best friend like that.

All the color fades from the picture they’ve been making between them.

“And I still want to be that, to be there for you, to be your friend.”

Alex tries not to cry, not in front of her.

“But I just can’t anymore.”

And Alex tries to choke out an _I’m sorry_ but it ends up as just a wordless gasp.

“I love being your friend, Alex, but it’s not enough for me anymore. Life is too short, and we…” she takes a shuddering breath. “We should kiss the girls we want to kiss.”

Alex is sure she’s hallucinating, now.

“And I just – Alex, I want to kiss…you.”

Alex stops breathing.

Maggie steps forward, and then her hands are on Alex’s cheeks, and she’s pulling her in, and she’s kissing her.

And it’s just like last year in the bar but so much better. It’s soft and long and sweet and passionate and wonderful. It’s Technicolor.

Maggie tastes like icing and she smells like cookies and sugar and whiskey and Alex wonders, as she pulls Maggie back into herself for another long kiss, if maybe this was inevitable after all.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

It’s Alex’s own terrible idea to invite Maggie back to the cookie decorating party this year. Kara fights her on it for two full weeks, but she finally yields to Alex’s unflappable persistence.

Maggie had told Alex, more than once, that **_Kara’s Festive Cookie Spectacular_** was the first time she’d felt like she’d belonged in National City. She’d said, more than once, that Kara’s parties – loud and crazy and over the top as they were – made her feel so at home, so happy, in ways nothing else did.

Alex knows what her parents did to her, how they kicked her out when she was just a child. How she’s always been searching for a new family.

So Alex refuses to deny her that sense of belonging, here in National City.

Even if they did break up, not even three months ago. Even if Maggie did walk out on her, not even three months ago.

Even if, every morning and every afternoon and every evening, she’s in agony.

 

* * *

 

This year the most interesting new guest is Lena Luthor. Alex sort of can’t picture the CEO – in her stilettos and her lipstick and her hair swept up in an immaculate bun – enjoying herself at **_Winter (Decorating) is Coming_** , but Kara insists on inviting her.

And she actually does pretty well. She’s clearly dressed for a different party, but she gamely takes a cookie and gets decorating. She’s precise, like the engineer she is, but a little out of place. Alex knows enough about her childhood to assume Lena has never decorated a holiday cookie before. She heads over and tries to ease Lena’s nerves, passing her bottles of sprinkles and bags of icing without being asked.

Lena’s work has nothing on Maggie’s, but it improves as she relaxes, and she shoots Alex a grateful smile.

Alex is halfway through refilling both of their glasses when Maggie walks in the door.

Alex’s heart stops.

It’s the first time she’s seen Maggie outside of work since the breakup. It’s the first time she’s seen her without the crisp snapping sound of crime scene tape fluttering in the wind, without the smells of decaying alien flesh, without Maggie’s enormous police jacket swallowing her body.

But they’re inside and it smells like cookies and sugar and whiskey and Maggie is wearing eyeliner and her favorite boots and her black leather jacket over a black Christmas sweater covered in white snowflakes, and the Hanson Christmas Album is blasting, and Alex feels her heart just completely shatter. Again.

Winn and James and Vasquez say hello to her but are markedly cooler to her than they’ve ever been.

Kara pointedly turns her back.

Lena – who Maggie arrested once – is the only one who greets her warmly.

Alex just stands there, dumbly, by the eggnog, and watches as the love of her life, the woman she woke up next to for nine incredible months, the woman who had always felt so inevitable, reaches out with shaking hands for a Star of David cookie.

 

* * *

 

Maggie decorates all of the best cookies. Kara doesn’t give her a single award. Maggie doesn’t say a thing.

Alex avoids her as best she can in the small apartment. She sings karaoke with Kara but her heart isn’t in it, and her charades and Pictionary teams both lose, and she has a sneaking suspicion her lack of enthusiasm is a part of the problem.

Maggie turns to leave early, after a couple hours of talking with people on the fringes of the party – mostly CatCo people who don’t know Alex and don’t know the history – and Alex can’t help but follow her out.

Alex’s heart is shattered, again and again, every second she’s around Maggie. But at least she has Kara. She has Kara, and Winn, and James, and Lena, and J’onn, and everyone else at the party. And Maggie doesn’t have anyone.

Alex is hopelessly, desperately, sad, but that doesn’t stop her from worrying about Maggie – sweet, lonely, disowned Maggie – spending Christmas by herself, shunned by everyone who had grown to love her over the last few years.

Alex trails her out into the hallway. “I’m sorry,” she says, shutting Kara’s door behind her. The memories assault her – exactly one year ago they stood in this spot and Maggie kissed her, over and over. And tonight they’re standing here and it’s the first time they’ve been alone since Maggie had left Alex’s apartment three months ago.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, tugging at the hem of her muted dark green Christmas tree sweater. “I invited you because I know much this meant to you, this group, and everyone just shut you out all night. I’m sorry.”

“Danvers,” Maggie says, and Alex knows she’s about to say more, but Alex is completely undone by hearing her name come out of Maggie’s mouth again, said softly like this, here in this hallway.

“Come back in and have a drink with me,” Alex says in a rush, hoping it doesn’t sound like a plea. “We can crack open the whiskey, and watch everyone make fools of themselves in Game of Thrones Pictionary.”

“I can’t.” Maggie’s looking down at the floor and Alex can’t read her at all.

“Sure you can.” She’s pretty sure she sounds desperate but she can’t care. “We can hide out in the bathroom, again, if you want.”

But Maggie shakes her head. “No, Danvers, I can’t. I have to go. I have…I have plans.”

And Alex’s life has been in black and white for three months, but it’s like losing the colors of their painting all over again.

Like the last vestiges of anything good that have been clinging to her insides are slipping out and thudding onto the floor.

Like she’s nothing but heartbreak, now.

“Oh,” she manages to say. Because Maggie didn’t say _date_ but Alex knows that’s what she means.

Maggie has a date. Right now. With a woman she’s going to drink with and eat with and look at and kiss and fuck and marry and Alex just wants to die.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie says, and then she’s turning and leaving and walking down the hallway.

“Merry Christmas, Danvers,” she says over her shoulder, and Alex doesn’t say anything back.

She can’t believe she ever thought that they were inevitable. That she was bound to be happy, with Maggie. It seems impossible, now.

Alex turns and goes back inside, and Kara was clearly listening through the door, because she’s there with a hug the instant Alex closes the door behind herself.

They end the night watching Game of Thrones, and Alex is wedged in the corner of the couch with Kara shielding her from everyone else, and she cries in her sister’s arms through all three episodes.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

Alex has been seeing Clara for a little over two and half months. She’s sweet, and beautiful, and kind, and Alex likes her a lot. She’s tall and willowy and has long, gorgeous, thick hair and grew up in Vietnam and works in PR and Alex likes her.

She comes a little late to this year’s party – called **_Empty Carb Fest: Winter Edition_ ** as a nod to James’ shameless whining – and is clearly immediately overwhelmed by the number of people and the vibe and the noise.

Alex stands with her, over to the side, and introduces her to the people who come up to them. She’s met Kara before, but no one else, so Alex understands why she’s overwhelmed. Lena is kind and gracious with her, and James is quiet and steady, and so after about half an hour Alex feels comfortable leaving Clara with the two of them to help Kara pull the last sheets of cookies out of the oven.

Which is, of course, when Maggie comes in.

She’s wearing a red Christmas sweater with Santa’s sleigh on it, and she’s holding a bottle of whiskey, and she looks right at Alex and she smiles, and Alex hates that it still sets off sparks in her chest.

Things have been okay between them. Stable. They aren’t friends but they can work cases together without it being too weird. They’re both being mature about it. Both are dating but neither – with the exception of last year’s party – ever mentions it.

But now Maggie is here, looking just as beautiful as ever, and Clara is here, and Alex wonders if she’s going to have a panic attack.

But she walks over anyway, greeting Maggie with a perfunctory hug and taking the whiskey from her with a genuine smile. It’s a really great bottle.

“I think your sweater is missing something,” Maggie says in lieu of a greeting.

Alex looks down, frowning. She’s wearing a dark gray sweater with a snowman on it, and she can’t see anything missing. She looks back up at Maggie, a question all over her face, and Maggie just grins at her.

Those fucking dimples.

“No bra? Has snowwoman fashion changed so quickly?”

And Alex can’t help but bark out a loud peal of laughter, one noticeable over the blasting of William Shatner’s Christmas album and the din of the group.

“Global warming,” she manages to say. “Even a bra will cause accelerated melting.”

“Ahh,” Maggie nods, sagely. “Gotta protect that arctic ice any way we can, right?”

“Right,” Alex says, and she’s smiling right into Maggie’s eyes, and the spark in her chest is quickly catching fire.

But then, right at that moment when the spark is hitting the tinder, Alex feels a hand on the small of her back.

“Hey,” a quiet voice says in her ear.

And Alex doesn’t turn around, meaning she has a perfect view of Maggie’s face as she realizes – detects – who this is. Her smile slips off her face and she blinks, twice, as she flows almost instantly from happiness to confusion to something that looks an awful lot like despair to a completely neutral face.

“Hi,” she says, her voice almost completely calm, holding out a hand to Clara, “I’m Maggie, I don’t think we’ve met before.”

Clara reaches out and shakes Maggie’s hand. She’s so much taller than Maggie, her skin-tight jeans accentuating that her legs go on for miles and miles. “No, I don’t think we have. I’m Clara.”

“My girlfriend,” Alex adds, softly.

“Oh,” Maggie says, and she almost nails the casual delivery – Clara probably doesn’t clock it – but Alex can hear everything in it.

“It’s new,” Alex explains, wondering why she feels the need to.

“I’m happy for you, Danvers,” Maggie manages, and her face is a little tight but she’s keeping a handle on it.

Alex is ranking a hurried mental list of ways to escape this awkwardness when Maggie blessedly changes the subject, nodding her head toward the kitchen island. “Are those gingerbread men?”

“Yes,” Alex says breathlessly, seizing on the new topic with desperation. “I finally convinced Kara to mix it up a little bit.”

Maggie looks right at her and raises an eyebrow, and even though Clara is still touching her back, the fickle spark in her chest threatens to catch fire again. “What did you have to give up to get her to agree to that?”

Alex hums, pointedly looking away, and Maggie just laughs, loud and clear. “Been watching a lot of rom-coms lately, Danvers?”

“Shut up,” Alex mumbles.

 

* * *

 

Clara makes beautiful cookies. She’s not terribly creative, but they’re exemplary. They look like they should be in a commercial or something.

She doesn’t seem very amused by Alex’s blobby reindeer creation, but Maggie holds it up to one of the reindeer on her sweater for Kara to take a picture, and Alex gives in and lets her chest ignite itself.

 

* * *

 

Clara’s phone rings and she steps out to handle a quick work thing, and Alex finds Maggie out on the balcony, holding a glass of eggnog and looking out at the city.

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about Clara,” Alex says softly, but Maggie shakes her head.

“No, I’m happy for you, Danvers,” she says, but her voice is so heavy. “She seems nice.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Good.” Maggie turns to face Alex, and the fire in her chest roars to life. “You deserve that. Someone like that, someone nice. Someone who can give you everything.”

And there’s so much history in those sentences – so much baggage, so much weight, so much sadness, and Alex just wants to hold her.

It smells like cookies and sugar and eggnog even out here on the balcony, and even with the chill and the wind Alex can smell Maggie’s hair.

“Why did we break up?” she hears herself ask.

Maggie turns away from her, back to the city. “You know why,” she says, and her voice is dull now.

“No, I don’t. I know what we said, that ‘we couldn’t make it work.’ But I don’t know _why_.” Alex has a white-knuckled grip on her mug. “What happened, Maggie?”

“Danvers, don’t,” she warns, and her voice is tight and she’s grabbing the railing with one hand like she’s worried that the apartment is going to tip over and dump her out.

“No, I’m not…I’m not trying to get back together, or to open this all back up. I just…” Alex lets out a puff of air. “I just want to know what happened.” She doesn’t mean to say anything else, but one more thing slips out, so soft that she isn’t sure Maggie hears it. “I think I deserve to know what happened.”

“It…I don’t think I was ready for you.” Maggie is quiet and steady and she isn’t looking over at Alex and her voice is so horribly sad that Alex just aches for her. “I wasn’t ready to let you in, or to love you like you deserved.”

“Maggie,” she breathes.

“You were asking me for a lot, and our jobs were crazy and you were getting used to it all, still, and it was just…I don’t know. It was a lot. And I felt so responsible for you, for you being happy and being out, and I just…” she sighs like she hates herself. “I’ve spent my whole life keeping people out, and you were slamming on my door, demanding to be let in, and I just couldn’t. It was too much, too fast.”

Alex blinks back tears. “So I drove you away?”

But Maggie is turning back to her before she’s even done saying it. “No. Alex, no. That’s _not_ what happened. _I_ drove _you_ away. I shut _you_ out, I was guarded with you, I couldn’t let myself trust you. I left because of me, not because of you. You were… _god_.” She shakes her head again, and Alex wonders if she’s close to tears too. “You were just, so eager and open and you wanted everything, and you deserved all of that, and I just couldn’t give it to you. You didn’t do anything wrong, Alex. I don’t want you to think that.”

Maggie’s calling her _Alex_ and she hasn’t done that since the night she left.

Alex asks the question that’s been eating at her for a year now. “If I’d asked you to stay, that night, would you have?”

There’s a long pause before Maggie says it. “I don’t know.”

They both stand there for a long time, their eggnog cooling and congealing in their cups.

“I’m happy for you and Clara,” Maggie says, finally. “You deserve to be happy.”

Alex’s response is breathy and tight and sad. “So do you, Mags. So do you.”

 

* * *

 

Maggie wins Best Decoration: Avant Garde for her cubist snowman and Best Use of Sprinkles on her gingerbread alien. Alex is a runner up for Worst Decoration, as she is every year, but this time that honor is taken by one of the CatCo reporters, who laughs and bows in front of everyone.

They do karaoke and play charades and taboo and they end the night with _Miracle on 34 th Street_. Alex sits next to Clara on the couch, who hates PDA but finally agrees to hold her hand under the blanket. Maggie is sprawled on the floor with Winn and Lena and every single time she laughs, the spark in Alex’s chest catches and burns and burns.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

Kara loses a bet to Lucy in October, and no one knows how Lucy is going to make her pay.

Until Lucy shows up to this year’s party, **_Kara + Cookies Celebrathon_** , with dirty shaped holiday cookies. She lays them all out on the table, already baked, and describes each one in florid detail while Kara gets redder and redder and hides her face deeper and deeper in her hands.

Most of them could almost be Christmas trees but are actually penises. Another set are almost skinny little trees but are actually butt plugs. The wreath – a cock ring – is possibly what does Kara in.

Alex just laughs and laughs, leaning into Elle’s body.

She can’t wait to show Maggie.

Alex met Elle right after her 30th birthday. Elle is different from anyone else Alex has ever dated. She’s loud, brash, voluptuous – the words that come to mind when Alex thinks about her are _lush_ , _sumptuous_ , and _decadent_. She has vivid red hair – from a bottle – and always wears deep red lipstick and dramatic makeup. She has curves for days, and reminds Alex of Christina Hendricks.

She’s much more femme than anyone Alex has ever been with. She wears skintight dresses and sky-high heels and is always pushing Alex to be just a smidge more masculine.

Alex isn’t sure about it all, not in a long-term way, but she’s having fun.

Tonight, Elle is wearing a very tight emerald green dress that absolutely clings to her, plunging low in the front and the back, showing off pretty much everything she’s got going on. Alex had told her, several times, that the vibe was usually “something funny you can get icing on,” but Elle had picked this and Alex certainly wasn’t going to say no to that view all night.

Even though she knows they’ll look a little funny in pictures, what with Alex in black jeans, her favorite boots, and a blue and white sweater with a menorah on it that actually lights up and plays a little song.

Maggie comes in about 45 minutes after Lucy’s cookie presentation, when Kara has just gotten her face back under control. Maggie’s wearing a black sweater that says “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel” in rainbow stitching, with silver and rainbow stars down the arms. Her hair is down and she’s as heartstoppingly beautiful as ever.

She’s holding hands with Sophia, who Alex has met once before, at the bar.

Sophia seems nice – she’s an elementary school teacher with a quiet voice and she’s even smaller than Maggie – but Alex wasn’t able to get a real read on her, not with all the ruckus of the bar and the superfriends.

She’s pretty sure tonight won’t be any better.  
  
This atmosphere, with “Honky Tonk Christmas” on full blast, Lucy pouring shots into people’s mouths, over 30 people packed into the studio apartment, and Winn yelling _“I didn’t KNOW it was a butt plug, why didn’t someone TELL me before I posted a picture of myself eating it!”_ at the top of his lungs would be a bit much for anyone. Elle, of course, is thriving already – this is absolutely the type of budding sloppy shitshow that she loves – but Alex worries that poor Sophia might try to sink into the floor and disappear.

Alex tugs on Elle’s hand and pulls her over, hoping a familiar face might help Sophia feel more settled.

“Danvers!”

Maggie’s face lights up when she sees Alex weaving her way over.

Maggie’s face always light up when she sees Alex. Even though they’ve been hanging out again, pretty regularly – sometimes alone, sometimes with the superfriends, sometimes with other detectives or agents after a long day – she still lights up every time.

And every time, it does something to Alex’s chest. She’s not sure if it’s color or fire or the sensation of an airplane falling out the sky, but it’s something.

She tells herself it’s fine. It _is_ fine, in most ways. It’s been over two years since they broke up – since Maggie had left. Since Alex had let Maggie walk out without a fight, without even asking her to stay. Alex has accepted that she’ll always love Maggie, that Maggie will always be the one that could have been, but that the chapter of her life where they were in love with each other is firmly closed.

She’s accepted that, and she’s come to cherish what they do have. Friendship, companionship, a work partnership that’s more efficient and fun than any other. Nights like this.

“Hey Sawyer,” she says easily, but she turns to Sophia first. “Sophia, hi, it’s good to see you again.”

Alex goes in for the light hug because it’s **_Kara + Cookies Celebrathon_** and it’s a hugging type of occasion. Sophia seems surprised, but she gamely gives Alex a couple of halfhearted pats on the back in response.

Alex pulls back, gesturing for Elle to take the final step into the group. “Elle, this is Sophia, and this is Maggie. And this is my girlfriend, Elle.”

Maggie reaches out first to shake her hand, with a perfectly friendly, “Hey, it’s great to finally meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you from Danvers.”

Sophia politely shakes her hand too, her tiny hand nearly disappearing into Elle’s.

“So, Danvers,” Maggie says, as their girlfriends are exchanging pleasantries, tilting her head a little bit in faux confusion. “What the fuck am I, chopped liver?”

And Alex rolls her eyes but she steps forward into the hug anyway, letting herself squeeze tightly when she feels the firm pressure of Maggie’s arms around her. Alex is so used to Kara’s hugs – ones that nearly suffocate her – that she can’t the stand polite, perfunctory ones. Maggie knows this, Maggie has always known this, and Alex is so glad they have a friendship now where Maggie can really and truly hug her.

They pull back after a moment, and Alex tugs on Maggie’s sweater. “Gay apparel, very original,” she says dryly.

Maggie doesn’t respond, just reaches out and turns on Alex’s sweater. “L’chaim,” she deadpans as the menorah flashes and sings, and Alex snorts.

 

* * *

 

Sophia is amazing at cookie decorating. Alex realizes she shouldn’t be surprised – elementary school teacher, and all – but she can’t help but be impressed. Sophia is precise and careful but quick, and she’s made two little houses look just like gingerbread cottages before Maggie is even done with one surrealist candy cane.

Maggie is, of course, sticking her tongue out in concentration, and using toothpicks to move the sprinkles around, and Alex ends up putting her hair back in a ponytail for her again.

Elle hastily decorates one Santa because Kara is giving her the stink eye, but then returns to holding court over by the mulled wine on the stove.

Maggie and Sophia are down at one end of the kitchen island, and Kara keeps hiding the dirty cookies Lucy brought, so they haven’t seen them yet. Alex goes and grabs one of the penis cookies and one of the butt plug cookies and casually sets them down on Maggie’s work area.

“For your next round,” she says breezily.

Maggie take a beat, focused on the final adjustments to her Salvador Dali inspired candy cane, before she looks up at them.

Her eyes bug out, she squeaks, and then she chokes on her laughter.

“This can’t…these can’t…” She closes her eyes, one hand over her heart. “Danvers, either I have a much dirtier mind than I thought, or your sister has _really_ grown up since last year.”

Alex snorts again. She almost makes a joke about Maggie’s dirty mind, but she pulls it back at the last minute. That’s too close to acknowledging the thing they never acknowledge – that they used to date, and have sex, and love each other. This whole new friendship is based on the fact that they both pretend it never happened.

Except for the way Maggie lights up whenever she sees Alex.

Except for the way Alex’s chest is constantly smoldering and sending up smoke when they’re together.

“Lucy brought them.”

“Ah ha!” Maggie opens her eyes again, grinning. “I _wasn’t_ hallucinating!”

“You were not,” Alex agrees.

Maggie nods. “I was wondering why I would have been hallucinating dicks, of all the possible dirty things.”

Alex can’t help but smirk. “Lucy claimed that there were boob ones, but that she ate them all before she got here.”

Maggie tosses her head back and laughs, and the tinder in Alex’s chest catches fire.

Maggie wrinkles her nose, still chuckling. “I can’t believe Kara let these into her home.”

Alex laughs again. Her chest blazes into light. “Apparently the sanctity of a pinky swear is more important than her puritanical values.”

Now it’s Maggie who snorts.

Sophia, on Maggie’s other side, has said nothing. She’s almost done with her fourth cookie now, an anatomically perfect reindeer.

“I have to go find Lucy,” Maggie says. “That girl has _game_.”

“I think she’s over by the stereo,” James says from Sophia’s other side.

“Excellent. Be right back.” Maggie turns to Alex over her shoulder, and her voice has dropped a little lower now. “Don’t eat my dirty cookies, Danvers.”

She winks, and Alex blushes. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she mumbles to herself.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Maggie says, stepping out onto the balcony. Alex has been out here for a few minutes, just taking a breather from the chaos inside.

Maggie hands her a glass of whiskey and the embers in Alex’s chest quickly catch fire again.

“How are things going with Elle?”

And it’s not an entirely innocent question, not after tonight. Because Maggie knows that Alex doesn’t like being in the spotlight, and tonight has been one moment after another where Elle has shoved herself into it. Dancing and singing along loudly to the bad Christmas music, shaking her bountiful assets during karaoke, working hard to be the loudest and funniest person in the room during charades.

Which would all be okay, probably, except she’s constantly tried to pull Alex in with her. She sang part of her karaoke number from Alex’s _lap_ , while Alex had blushed a deeper red than Maggie had ever seen. She tried to make everyone laugh by telling sex jokes or sex stories about Alex all night, seemingly forgetting that Alex is the boss of several of the people in the room.

After the third such joke, poor J’onn had paled and excused himself, taking almost half an hour out on this balcony himself before heading back inside and surrounding himself with the calm, quiet minds of Vasquez, James, and Sophia.

So Alex just shrugs. “I’m not sure,” she says honestly, taking a sip from her glass. “She’s fun, most of the time. But it’s not…I don’t think it’s anything serious.”

Maggie nods. “I get that,” she says softly. “Not everything has to be serious.”

Alex nods too. “I guess I’m just…Clara was _so_ serious, you know, and Elle is all flash and superficial stuff. I just…I think I need balance.”

Maggie nods again. “Your job is so heavy, and tough,” she says softly, “and you have Kara to give you light and happiness but sometimes she’s down too. You need someone who can be both.”

Alex takes another drink. “Easier said than done, I guess.”

But this is getting too close – too close to the memories of how Maggie had held her and cradled her while she cried, had placed ridiculous bets for flash grenades to cheer her up, had jumped on her and woken her up in bed with little kisses all over her cheeks when she’d gone to bed grumpy, had jump-danced around the living room in her socks, had driven her out to the desert to shoot things, had cried in her arms on her dad’s birthday.

“How about with you and Sophia?” Alex asks, desperate to stop remembering what it was like when she was Maggie’s. “Still going well?”

She’s expecting a gentle _yeah_ , maybe with that small tender smile Maggie has sometimes. They’ve been together for about five months now. Alex is pretty sure that’s the longest relationship Maggie’s had, since her. Alex is resigned to Sophia being around for a while.

But Maggie is twisting her lips a little bit – a move that she definitely got from Alex – and is fiddling with her cup. “I’m…I’m not sure,” she says softly, just like Alex had.

She takes a drink and waits for a while, and Alex lets her gather her thoughts in silence.

“I think…I think something is missing,” she finally says. “I like her, and I care about her, and it’s easy, being with her. But I’m not…I don’t think it’s enough, you know?”

Alex nods. She does know. She didn’t, before, back when she and Maggie were together. She hadn’t known, then, about the different ways of being with someone. About how some people were easy and some were hard, about how some connections are more cerebral and some are more physical. About how some relationships grow from passion and others grow from something much quieter and softer.

She hadn’t known, then, because her relationship with Maggie had been all of it. It had been the easiest and the hardest thing in the world. She’d wanted Maggie with her brain and her body, and she’d wanted Maggie for _her_ brain and her body. She’d wanted her with a fiery rush of passion borne from shared secrets and pints of beer and quiet nights over a pool table or a case file.

She wonders, for the billionth time, what would have happened if she’d asked Maggie to stay.

“You deserve it, Mags,” Alex says, so softly it’s almost a whisper, and in a way it’s just like last year and in a way it’s nothing like last year. “You deserve everything.”

“So you do,” Maggie says, and Alex almost believes her.

 

* * *

 

Alex and Kara sing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (to potstickers) and Alex and Maggie are on the same team for Pictionary and they absolutely crush it.

Alex gets in a long and intricate argument with Lena and Winn about a new vaccine she’s developing, and Maggie, as she’s walking past, casually slips her hand into Alex’s sweater and turns on her menorah. It lights up and it sings and the serious mood is completely broken. Winn gaffaws and Lena genuinely throws her head back with laughter and Alex is pretending to glare but ends up breaking completely into a fit of whiskey-endued giggles, and Maggie is snickering, and it smells like cookies and sugar and whiskey, and there’s a forest fire in Alex’s chest.

 

* * *

 

When Sophia is occupied with a couple of the CatCo folks, and Elle is intently focused on kicking ass as the drummer in Rock Band, Alex, stifling a giggle, tugs Maggie into the bathroom and they each take a shot of whiskey behind the closed door.

Maggie giggles too, looking up into Alex’s eyes, and she’s standing a little closer to Alex than is required by the floor plan of the small bathroom.

 

* * *

 

Elle, tipsy off mulled wine and perhaps a tiny bit jealous, coaxes Alex under the mistletoe and kisses her, wet and sloppy and wanting. Alex kisses her back, not afraid of a little PDA in the safe warmth of her sister’s apartment. Even though Elle isn’t a forever girlfriend, she’s hot and she wants Alex and that’s a deliciously heady feeling.

Elle moves down to her neck, slurping and kissing and biting. Alex is about to push her off – there _is_ a line, even when you’re that hot, and poor J’onn is right there – when she catches Maggie’s eye. Alex, holding her glance, rolls her eyes as she gently eases Elle off her, and Maggie grins back at her, wrinkling up her nose a little bit and showing her dimples.

 

* * *

 

Maggie and Sophia are putting on their coats, so Alex ducks out of her conversation with James and heads over to the door to say goodbye. She and Sophia exchange light hugs again, but Maggie pulls her in for a real, full, long hug.

They’re going to see each other next week, they have plans already set, but Maggie is clutching her like it’ll be months before they can do this again. Alex holds her back, not sure why Maggie seems to need this, but more than happy to give it.

“Merry Christmas, Sawyer,” she says softly, right into Maggie’s hair.

“Merry Christmas, Alex,” Maggie murmurs back.

Alex freezes, still in Maggie’s arms. Maggie never calls her _Alex_ anymore. She’d done it last year, twice, out on the balcony, and she’d done it in intimate moments when they were dating. And that’s it.

Maggie starts to pull back, but Alex holds her in place, just for one beat longer, letting the sound of Maggie’s voice shaped around her name flood through her veins, setting her whole self on fire.

She finally lets go, and, with one last smile, Maggie and Sophia slip out of the door.

They close the door behind them, and Alex just stares at it for long moment, until Kara comes up behind her, sliding her arms around Alex and pulling her close.

“I love you, Alex,” she says, and her voice is firm and loving and she clearly heard and saw all of it.

“I love you too, Kara.”

Kara gives her one tight squeeze, then lets her go, grabbing her hand and pulling her back to the island. “Come on,” she says, “I think we have some penises to decorate.”

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

Kara wanted to call this year’s party **_Supergirl’s Super Cookie Surprise_** , but Alex had put her foot down. “What’s the surprise?” she’d deadpanned, “that Kara Danvers is Supergirl, secret identities are for wimps, pass it on?”

Kara had rolled her eyes but yielded, sort of.

She insisted on still making Supergirl gingerbread cookies (complete with capes), but agreed, which much heavy sighing, to change the name of the party.

Although Alex, tilting her head and squinting at the banner Kara has just hung up in the kitchen, isn’t sure that the new name, **_A Very High-Class Holiday Soiree aka SUPER COOKIE SHOWDOWN_** is much better. At least the message is more muddled, though.

Alex wonders how many times it took for Kara to spell “soiree” correctly.

Alex is looking forward to the party this year. She’s excited to get to see Lucy, who has been out at the desert base a lot lately, and James, who has basically disappeared since he got serious with his girlfriend. She’s been spending a lot of time with Winn and Lena, but it’ll be nice to see them outside of the lab.

And even though she sees Kara almost every day, it’s always good to see her as happy as she is on Cookie Decorating day.

But she’s really going to miss seeing Maggie.

She hasn’t seen Maggie in nine months.

Alex had broken up with Elle in the middle of last January, and Maggie had broken up with Sophia right before Valentine’s Day. She’d called Alex the day before she’d done it, on February 10th, upset, worried that the timing was bad for Sophia, but completely terrified of the idea of spending Valentine’s with someone who didn’t know.

And she hadn’t wanted to tell Sophia the truth. And she knew that was a sign that the relationship wasn’t going to work out.

Alex had listened, and validated, and supported, and then, the next night, after Maggie had done it, had bought her drink after drink and played her in pool and driven her home and hugged her and told her that her life was better because Maggie was in it.

Then, just a few days later, when Maggie was still shaking off the last vestiges of her hangover, they’d been slammed, all of them, by a huge case. They’d thrown themselves into it for weeks. It was Maggie who’d finally cracked it, on March 23rd.

After a few days of sleeping, they’d hung out, just the two of them, at the bar. And it had felt like maybe something was zinging between them, again. It was the first time they were both single since things had been better between them. Because after Clara, Maggie had been with Rose, and then Alex had been with Jay, and then Maggie had met Sophia, and then Alex had met Elle.

But, at the end of March, there was no Sophia and no Clara and no Elle, and things were good between them. Things were easy.

They’d been spending more time alone together since they were both single, at the bar and even at each other’s apartments, and it was simple and it was fun and it was good. And it was, maybe, the start of something.

There had been some glances, these last two months, that had lingered too long on lips and eyes and hands. And their initial _no touching_ rule had gone by the wayside over a year ago but something had changed in the few months since **_Kara + Cookies Celebrathon_** – little taps on the back of the hand, help putting on a jacket, a bump with a hip, an arm casually linked with another. And they’d been making each other laugh more – loud hearty bursts and indulgent giggles and once a low, rumbling chuckle from Maggie that Alex had only ever heard in bed before.

It had felt a little like the start of something, since Valentine’s Day. Of a new drawing between them, of a new fire burning in Alex’s chest.

Like maybe they were about to burst into color again.

And that had terrified Alex but she’d been pretty sure she didn’t mind. She understood all the reasons they hadn’t worked, before, but she was different than she’d been, back then, and she knew Maggie was too.

So Alex was scared, of this zing, but she welcomed it. And they finished the case and it was zinging and zinging and zinging.

And then, two days after the case closed, Maggie had gotten the call that she was being sent to Metropolis for three months to help establish the science division there. It was a promotion – a big one – and a chance to make sure Metropolis was implementing all of her best ideas. It was her boss and her commissioner telling her that she was the one person in the country they trusted most.

She didn’t even consider saying no. And Alex would have shot her with tranquilizer gun and hogtied her and thrown her onto the plane if she’d even considered saying no.

So she’d left, not a week after the order came down. She was gone before the end of March.

But three months turned into six, and now it’s been nine. And she isn’t back yet.

 _January_ , she’d insisted, when they’d texted right after Thanksgiving. _They’re swearing I’ll be back in mid-January_.

 _But what about Christmas?_ Alex had asked. _What about the party?_

 _I’ll have to raincheck on the party,_ she’d said _. Maybe you can recreate a mini version for me when I get back._

 _Well, *someone* sure thinks she’s special_ , Alex had sent, and she could perfectly picture Maggie’s eye roll.

 _That Frosty IS a narcissistic bitch_ , Maggie had agreed, and Alex had been grateful Maggie wasn’t around to hear her ungraceful snort.

 

* * *

 

Alex has plans for tonight, plans to make Maggie feel a little less lonely this holiday season, all the way across the country. She’s finally downloaded snapchat (i_love_my_alien_gun) and Kara’s given her a crash course, and she’s planning to basically snap the whole night and send it over to Maggie (Detective_Dimples). She’s going to recreate their now traditional blobby snowwoman in a red bra and she’s already sent a bottle of Maggie’s favorite whiskey to Metropolis which should be arriving to her apartment door by special courier (Clark Kent) tonight, so Maggie can drink along with her. She’s going to record messages from everyone wishing her a Merry Christmas, and, depending on how loud things are, maybe FaceTime her in for charades.

Her phone is fully charged and waiting, and she’s ready to make sure Maggie knows that, even an entire country away, she’s still part of this family.

 

* * *

 

Alex is two eggnogs in. She’s sent five snapchats so far – one of Kara decorating, one of the extremely large **_A Very High-Class Holiday Soiree aka SUPER COOKIE SHOWDOWN_** banner, two of the Supergirl gingerbread cookies, and one of herself eating one of the Supergirls while Kara pouts in the background. Maggie’s responded to each of them with an emoji or a quick text, although she’d filled the whole screen with laugh-crying faces at the banner.

And Alex’s phone buzzes with a notification that Maggie’s screenshotted the picture of her.

Alex opens her texts, ready to mock Maggie for it, but there are already those little gray dots that mean Maggie’s typing to her.

 _That’s the best party name yet_ , Maggie types quickly. _Your sister is hilarious_.

 _My sister is bonkers_ , Alex types back. _Don’t encourage her_.

 _Too late_ , Maggie responds. And before Alex can ask why, Kara is pulling out her own phone and cackling at it.

“Maggie says she loves the party theme!” she calls into the room, and gets a solid high five from Winn.

Alex is in the middle of rolling her eyes when the front door opens.

Just about everyone is here already, so Alex turns to see who the latecomer is. And she almost drops her glass.

Because the person who just walked in…she could swear that person, even from behind the bulk of Winn’s body (when did he have time to fling himself across the room like that, and is that high-pitched shrieking sound coming from him?), is _Maggie_.

Maggie, who is stuck in Metropolis for at least another three weeks.

Maggie, who none of them have seen in nine months.

Lena, standing right by the door, is the second person to pile onto whoever it is, adding her own pale skin and dark hair and Christmas sweater to the mass that is already Winn and someone who is likely nearly suffocating already.

Kara is the one that confirms it – confirms who belongs to the sleeve of a leather jacket and flash of dark hair that Alex had seen. Because Kara’s sliding in her reindeer socks all the way across the floor, screeching “Maggieeeeeeee!” as she does so, colliding with poor Maggie’s body with an audible thump.

And then Alex hears Maggie’s laugh – deep and hearty and happy – and her chest ignites like it was doused in lighter fluid.

Maggie is _here_.

After a long moment, everyone finally pulls themselves off her enough for Alex to see her face. And Maggie is looking around the room, searching for something, and when her eyes hit Alex they stop.

She lights up.

She always lights up, when she sees Alex.

“Hey, Danvers,” she says, and she’s tilting her head and beaming, full dimple, and Alex can’t even breathe.

And Maggie’s halfway through saying “Fancy meeting you here,” when Alex – who hadn’t even realized she was already moving across the room to her – reaches out and pulls her into a hug.

“What the _fuck_ , Sawyer,” she mutters, pressing herself as close to Maggie as she can get.

Maggie laughs again – that rich, full chuckle she has – and Alex can feel it in her whole body. Maggie’s arms, already so tight around her, squeeze even harder for a second before she pulls back a little to look at Alex’s face.

“Surprised?” she asks, one eyebrow up, a shit-eating grin on her face.

And Alex is just grinning so much she can’t even respond.

Maggie is _here_.

Maggie is here, and it smells like cookies and sugar and whiskey and Alex is still touching her, and she hasn’t seen her in nine months, and she’s _here_.

But the thought of whiskey makes Alex realize that she should text Clark and tell him not to go drop off that bottle at Maggie’s apartment, and that makes her think about Kara, and that makes her realize something else.

She turns – still keeping one hand tight on Maggie’s arm – to face her sister. “Did you know?”

And Kara can’t keep a secret to save her life – they all still laugh at _I flew here on a bus_ on a regular basis – but she’s grinning and nodding. “For like a week!” she says, clearly proud of herself.

Alex shakes Maggie’s arm – still warm and soft under her hand – a little bit. “You little shit,” she says, but she’s smiling so hard.

Maggie is grinning back at her, squeezing her arm back, and maybe even tugging her in a little closer. “I wanted to see the look on your face,” she says, and her voice is loud enough to carry to everyone but it still feels like she’s saying it just for Alex. “It’s not often you get the chance to get the drop on the very sneaky Special Agent Danvers.”

Alex makes a little pfft noise, and knocks her hip into Maggie’s, and Maggie grins even harder.

Everyone trickles back into the main party area, Kara pointing out the banner and the gingerbread Supergirls, Lena walking off to get Maggie an eggnog, Winn babbling a mile a minute at her.

But, even in the chaos swirling around them, there’s one quiet moment when Alex and Maggie are alone in an eddy.

“I really missed you, Danvers,” Maggie says, and her voice is soft and tender and intimate and loving.

“Yeah?” Alex asks, her voice a little more unsure and a little less teasing than she meant. “You didn’t just come for the gingerbread Supergirls?”

“Well, I mean, those sealed the deal for me, obviously,” Maggie jokes, still grinning, still looking directly into Alex’s eyes, still pressing her hip and her arm into Alex’s.

“Obviously,” Alex echoes, wondering if her grin is permanent.

There’s a pause, like maybe the conversation is over, but right before Alex changes the subject, Maggie says one more thing.

“But I came back to see you.”

Alex winds her arm around Maggie’s, locking their elbows together, clutching her as tightly as she dares. She smiles down at Maggie, humming a little in pleasure.

Maggie is _here_.

 

* * *

 

Maggie’s wearing a green sweater with a melting snowman on it, and he’s holding up a sign that says “ _save the ice!_ ” Alex can’t help but cackle when she sees it. Alex’s sweater is dark blue with a polar bear on it, a red scarf around his neck. Maggie gestures between them and makes a joke about representing the arctic ecosystem, and the fire in Alex’s chest leaps the ridge.

After a round of eggnog and hugs, they head to the kitchen. Maggie decorates a gingerbread Supergirl while Alex, standing so close that their hips are touching, makes the requisite blobby snowwoman in her red bra. She adds edible glitter this year to really snazz it up, and Maggie compliments her on how little her technique has improved over the years.

Alex scoffs, rolling her eyes and reaching for a Santa.

Maggie’s sleeves keep falling down over her fingers –the arms of her sweater are too long for her because she’s fucking tiny and adorable – so Alex reaches over and rolls them up for Maggie. Maggie, holding eye contact with her, licks blue icing off her right index finger while Alex is occupied with her left arm.

Alex isn’t moving, but somehow still manages to stumble.

Once her sleeves are fixed, Maggie grabs another gingerbread Supergirl and surprises Alex by carefully cutting off the cape with an exacto-knife.

Alex cocks her head in confusion. “Wait, what are you doing?”

But Maggie just smirks at her. “Not all heroes wear capes, Danvers,” is all she says, throwing in a wink that completely incinerates Alex’s chest. She nods her chin over to Alex’s plate. “Make your Santa.”

It isn’t until Alex is halfway done with her lopsided Santa that she realizes what Maggie is making.

She’s making a gingerbread _Alex_.

She’s covered most of the body in black, and the hair is red, and she’s added the detail of thigh holsters and guns, and what looks suspiciously like a silver tactical knife strapped to the ankle.

She, as Alex abandons her Santa to watch, paints a delicately grouchy expression on the gingerbread face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alex says, but it’s not what she means.

But Maggie just looks up at her and grins. “I don’t think they’ve gotten around to commercially producing gingerbread black-ops feds,” she says. “Thought I’d be ahead of the curve.”

And what Alex says is, “You’re ridiculous, Sawyer,” but that’s not what she means either.

Maggie leans into her, letting her shoulder and arm press into Alex. “You deserve to be a cookie,” she says, and her tone is serious but Alex can tell she’s barely beating back a laugh.

Alex can’t stop herself from snaking her arm around Maggie’s waist and holding her in place. “Damn straight,” she murmurs, licking the glittery red icing from her own thumb.

 

* * *

 

Kara is setting up the tv and sound system for karaoke. Alex pulls the potstickers out of the microwave, bringing the steaming bowl over the coffee table, as always, so when they sing “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” it won’t be to a cooling and congealing mess.

They nail the song, as always. Kara insisted that they “learn a new dance” for this year, which Alex had thought was ridiculous because there had never been a dance to begin with, but Kara had been relentless. So this year Alex stands slightly behind her and half-heartedly waves her arms around, half a beat behind Kara, and feels doofier than ever.

But, judging by the catcalling from Winn and Lucy, it goes over quite well.

After the last chorus, they both take a deep bow. Kara stays up there, holding her microphone, gesturing for Winn to come join her for the second song of the evening. Alex happily hands her mic over, gladly fading back into the crowd, her moment in the spotlight good and over.

She heads over to the whiskey, getting a high-five from James and a clap on the back from J’onn as she passes them.

But before she gets to the whiskey, she sees Maggie looking at all the decorated cookies. Alex stops next to her and looks down to see Maggie staring, hard, at the plate labeled alien_gun_lover. The plate with Alex’s blobby snowwoman and her lopsided Santa and the reindeer she made that’s missing a front leg because she’d been a little too aggressive with the pastry bag.

And Maggie is reaching out with one delicate finger, just touching the edge of the plate, and she’s moving with something that feels like reverence and her hand is shaking. Alex bumps her gently with her hip. “Mags?” she asks.

And Maggie looks up, and Alex nearly lurches in surprise. Because Maggie has this look in her eye that Alex hasn’t seen in three years. It’s hungry, it’s desperate, it’s reckless, it’s something that looks a lot like loving.

It bores into Alex, drilling down into her bones.

She’s survived the last three years by forcing herself to forget exactly what it had felt like to be loved, fully and completely, by Maggie Sawyer.

And, right this minute, in her sister’s kitchen, to the sound of Winn belting out “Build Me Up, Buttercup” behind her, with icing still stuck to the inside of her thumb, it hits her with a sickening jolt. She remembers it. How being loved by Maggie had filled every fiber of her, how it had coated every cell and every neuron in her body with a reckless happiness.

And that should make her panic, it should make her miserable, it should make her terrified, because she doesn’t know how she’ll survive remembering exactly what it was like to have Maggie, while she still doesn’t have her.

She should be running, as fast as she can, away from all of this.

But she isn’t.

She isn’t because Maggie is stepping even closer to her, and Maggie is looking at her like she remembers too. Like maybe she hasn’t let herself feel it for three years either, but now she remembers. Like maybe she wants Alex with a sort of desperate, heedless hunger.

Maggie is stepping even closer to her, and Maggie is breathing out, “Fuck this,” and Maggie is grabbing her hand, and Maggie is pulling her through the front door and out into the hallway.

Maggie closes the door behind them, muffling the sounds of karaoke and laughter and Lucy’s good-natured heckling.

Alex can barely breathe. She doesn’t know what’s happening, exactly, but she also, with the tiny piece of her mind that’s still whirring, remembers the word _inevitable_.

“Alex,” Maggie breathes out, and that word alone would be enough to flood Alex with color. But she’s looking at Alex like she’s hungry, like she’s wanting, like they’re inevitable and she’s tired of fighting. Like maybe her chest is on fire too.

She reaches out, and Alex isn’t aware of either of them moving, but suddenly she’s up against the wall, Maggie in front her. They aren’t touching, yet, but there are just inches between their bodies.

“Fuck, Alex,” Maggie says, breathy and mesmerized and completely gone. “You’re so fucking terrible at decorating cookies.”

And Alex is just opening her mouth to protest – even though it’s so obviously true – but then Maggie is kissing her. Maggie is kissing her, and she tastes like icing, and her hands are tight on Alex’s cheeks and neck and she’s making this little sound, needy and wanting and hungry.

It’s sweet and it’s loving and it’s desperate and it’s warm and it’s completely overwhelming and it’s so long overdue.

And Maggie’s lips are full and plump under Alex’s, and the kiss is somehow both greedy and sweet, somehow both desperate and loving, somehow both soft and wild. It’s the most comforting feeling in the world, and also the scariest.

Alex hopes it never stops. Her chest is sending off fireworks, possibly about to go supernova.

Everything is exploding into Technicolor.

Maggie pulls away, after a long moment, resting her forehead on Alex’s. “Alex,” she whispers, and her hands are trembling on Alex’s neck and her voice is so quiet and almost completely wrecked.

Alex manages to slide her hands from Maggie’s waist to wrap around her back, pulling her tight, erasing the inches and the years between them. Alex dips her head down, holding Maggie in the tightest hug she can manage, hoping her body says all the things she can’t manage to get out.

And, from the way that Maggie melts into her, she thinks it might.

Alex kisses Maggie’s ear before nuzzling her nose in Maggie’s hair, smelling cookies and sugar and whiskey and something that reminds her a lot of home.

 

* * *

 

After a few long moments in the hug, Maggie pulls back.

Alex is startled to see her wipe a tear off her cheek. “Mags,” she breathes, mesmerized and completely gone.

Maggie makes a little chuffing sound, a sort of self-deprecating laugh that gets caught in her chest. “I’m sorry.”

But Alex is already shaking her head. “Don’t you dare apologize for a second of this,” she says, and she can’t believe how tender her voice is. She tucks Maggie’s hair back behind her ear, the feel of Maggie’s hair between her fingers nearly sending her into sensory overload. But then she freezes, pulling her fingers a few centimeters away. “Unless you didn’t mean it? Or you regret it, or--”

“No.” Maggie cuts her off, tightening her hands around the back of Alex’s neck, letting her thumbs drag up and down her cheeks. “Alex, no.” And she says it with enough heat and enough caring to convince even Alex. “God, no.” She leans in and kisses Alex, as if to just make sure her point is coming through.

“I just…” Maggie leans back a little bit, letting Alex’s arms tense around her waist and keep her from going too far. “I was going to take you to dinner or something. I was going to tell you about what’s changed, how I’ve changed. I was going to, kind of,” she shrugs a little bit, still inside the hug, and it tugs at Alex’s heart. “…you know, make my case, that we can work. I was going show you that I’m here for this, now, for all of it. I didn’t mean to just…” she gestures to the hallway and gives a low sort of chuckle, “you know, knock you on the head and drag you outside with me like a caveman.”

But Alex shakes her head. “I don’t need dinner,” she says softly, and she means it. She knows what’s changed. She’s seen it, she’s felt it. She knows it’ll be different, this time. “This is perfect.” She pauses for a second, and then she says it, because Maggie came back from Metropolis early to see her, and Maggie was planning to take her out to dinner and tell her she liked her, and Maggie wants her back. “You’re perfect,” she lets herself say.

And Maggie gives her one of the most thorough kisses of her life, and Alex has never liked the taste of icing so much in her life.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

This year, Alex had no input on the name of the party. And her worst fears are realized when she walks in two hours before the start time to see the banner hanging from the rafters. **_Alex Finally Admitted She Likes This: A Cookie Decorating Party by Kara_** , it says.

Alex can’t roll her eyes hard enough, but Kara just cackles. She pulls out her phone and plays an audio recording of Alex, taken some months ago, where Alex says she loves the party. Which, of course, Alex argues for the fifth time, as she’s taking cookies off the cooking sheet and placing them onto the waiting lazy susan, is absurd because she’d never said she _didn’t_ like it, and both of her first kisses with Maggie happened at the party, so she’d kind of be a monster to not like it.

Which, of course, gets her a squeal and hearteyes from Kara, who promptly changes the subject to how even the rookies at the DEO have noticed how happy Alex has been this past year.

Alex throws a broken cookie at her.

 

* * *

 

Maggie comes a little late, because apparently “I have a very important cookie party to get to” doesn’t make perps confess any faster.

She walks in with James, who was stuck late at CatCo, both of them mid-laugh.

Alex feels her chest catch fire at the sight of her.

Maggie shrugs off her leather jacket, revealing her red sweater with two reindeer kissing on it.

Fuck, she’s just so _cute_.

She looks around the room, still keeping up her conversation with James, and when her eyes find Alex, she lights up.

She always lights up, when she sees Alex.

Alex excuses herself from her conversation with Lena, who just gives her knowing smile, and walks over to Maggie.

Maggie reaches out, James momentarily forgotten, and tugs on the hem of Alex’s sweater, which is blue with a narwhal on it, a Santa hat perched jauntily on the tip of its horn. “Nerd,” she says, her grin impossibly big and incredibly tender.

Alex scoffs a little bit. “Gay,” she retorts, tugging on the hem of Maggie’s.

But Maggie just tilts her head, dimples popping and eyes so soft. “You’d better hope so,” she murmurs, her voice soft and sexy and loving.

And Alex just hums in agreement as she pulls Maggie in for a long kiss, smiling against her lips and scrunching the warm red fabric between her fingers.

 

* * *

 

Alex has never been to the party like this. Twice the party had been awkward, because she hadn’t been sure where she’d stood with Maggie. Twice she’d had a date she hadn’t been sure about. Twice there had been something zinging between them, and twice that zinging had ended with them making out in the hallway.

And it’s not that tonight _won’t_ involve making out in the hallway, because it certainly might, but this is the first time Alex is coming to the party _with_ Maggie, secure in their relationship. This is the first time that, the morning of the party, she had woken up in Maggie’s arms, warm and soft and held. This is the first time that it’s been only hours since the last time she kissed Maggie. This is the first time that she knows that, no matter how bloated and shaky they are from all the sugar and eggnog, they’ll trade sticky whiskey-fueled kisses when they get home.  
  
This is the first time she’ll be going home with Maggie to the apartment that they share.

And Alex has always loved this party, and it’s not that she didn’t enjoy it all the other years – well, maybe not the first year after the breakup – but it’s different this year.

Making the blobby snowwoman in the red bra, Maggie’s ridiculous toothpick technique, the N’SYNC Christmas Album blaring through the room, Lucy dressed as an elf pouring peppermint schnapps into people’s mouths – it’s all easier. Sweeter, more comforting, more comfortable.

She’s happier, this year, than she’s ever been.

But she can feel a small current of tension going through Maggie’s body. Something in way she holds herself during charades and the way she laughs a little too loudly during “All I Want For Christmas is You.” Alex checks in three times, and three times Maggie just kisses her on the cheek and tells her how happy she is, how glad she is to be here with her, how beautiful Alex looks, so Alex lets it go.

Finally it’s time for the Decoration Awards Ceremony. Kara has asked Alex to help her judge this year, because apparently Alex has won “worst decoration” so many times that it’s best for everyone if she’s ineligible for competition this year. They walk up and down the plates slowly as everyone else half-watches, Kara doing her best to give a compliment to every plate they pass.

“Wait,” Alex says, looking around in confusion when they get to the end of the counter. “Where’s Maggie’s plate?”

“Favoritism!” Winn calls out from the crowd, but Alex ignores him.

“Oh,” Maggie’s voice says, her body hidden by the bulk of bodies in front of her. “Mine’s here.” And there’s something small and scared and tight in her voice, and Alex can’t for the life of her figure out what’s going on. She literally had stood there and watched Maggie decorate her cookies, it’s not like there’s anything for Maggie to be nervous about.

But then Maggie is walking forward, and in her hands is a tray covered in tinfoil, not a plate. And her face is a little pale but it’s set and determined, like before they make a bust.

“Mags, what…?”

But Maggie doesn’t say anything. She sets the tray down on the kitchen island, which, now that Alex notices, is suspiciously cleared off. Maggie takes a deep breath, then swallows hard. She comes to stand next to Alex, taking Alex’s hand in hers.

Maggie’s hand is shaking.

With her free hand, she starts to carefully loosen the tinfoil from the edges. Alex helps, with her free hand, her breath up in her throat.

It’s like everything is happening in slow motion.

They pull the tinfoil away, and Kara is there to grab it from them before fading back into the crowd.

Alex looks down at the tray, and she’s immediately struggling to see through her tears.

It’s cookies, alright, beautifully and meticulously decorated in a style that is unmistakably Maggie’s. It’s a whole scene. A Santa in a sleigh, pulled by four reindeer in a line. There are snowflakes in each corner of the tray.

The sleigh says _Alex_ in blue icing.

The reindeer each have one word on them. _Will you marry me?_

And, what really makes Alex both laugh and cry, is underneath the sleigh. A perfect blobby snowwoman, complete with glittery red bra and lumpy black hat, exactly the lopsided way Alex would make it. And the snowwoman is saying _Please?_

“I fell in love with you, here, in this apartment,” Maggie says to her softly, and Alex finally manages to tear her eyes away from the tray, letting herself look at the pale, trembling, beautiful woman with the death grip on her hand. “Right here, at this island, with the icing and the whiskey and the eggnog and your,” her breath hitches but she manages to keep going, “your ridiculously bad decorating technique.”

Alex huffs out a laugh, and it’s only when she hears other people laughing that she remembers there are thirty other people in this kitchen too.

“I love you so much, Alex, and I want to make cookies with you for the rest of my life.”

Alex hears the distinctive sound of Kara squeaking.

“Alex,” Maggie says with a new breath, her voice more focused and determined now. “Will—“

“Yes,” Alex says, breathy and mesmerized and totally, completely gone. “Yes. Please. Yes.”

 

* * *

 

They do end up making out in the hallway, this year. And in the kitchen, and in the living room, and in the bathroom.

James takes staged high-resolution images of the tray of cookies before he lets Alex eat any of them, so they’ll have the memory forever. Lucy pours them celebratory shots. Winn and Kara perform a special version of N’SYNC’s “In Love on Christmas” with the lyrics slightly rewritten to be about the two of them. J’onn gives each of them a long, tight hug, and guarantees them both the next weekend off, promising to go as far as impersonating Maggie at work if need be. Lena presses a set of keys into Maggie’s hand, insisting they spend that free weekend at her cabin up in the mountains. “For a moment of calm before Kara starts planning your wedding,” she says, and Alex nods frantically. She always knew Lena was a smart woman.

Kara can’t stop hugging either of them.

“How long did you know?” Alex asks her, incredulous.

“Like, a month! Oh Rao, I almost ruined it so many times! But, Rao, Alex!!” Kara squeezes her so hard Alex can hear a vertebra pop. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Me too, Kara,” Alex says, and she’s beaming and she can’t quite believe this is her life. “Me too.”

And Alex takes Maggie’s face in her hands, and she’s so impossibly beautiful and so impossibly perfect and Alex has loved her for so long. Alex kisses her, long and slow and thorough, and Maggie tastes like icing, and it smells like cookies and sugar and whiskey, and the inevitable has never tasted quite so good.


End file.
